TODAY: SCOTUS HEARS CHALLENGE TO POLITICAL SPEECH LAW — The Supreme Court won’t actually be considering Obamacare in the case it’s hearing today, but questions about whether anti-abortion groups can charge that it allows taxpayer funding of abortion led to the lawsuit in the first place. The justices will hear arguments on whether Susan B. Anthony List can challenge an Ohio law making it a crime to publish false statements about a political candidate. It all started when the group tried to run billboards in 2010 accusing former Rep. Steve Driehaus of supporting public funding for abortion by voting for the health law.

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--The court is being asked to decide whether SBA List has standing to challenge the law since the billboards never actually went up. But the case has also stirred up heated questions about whether the Ohio law and others like it violate First Amendment rights. And it’s reignited the issue of whether the Affordable Care Act contains taxpayer funding for abortion. http://politico.pro/1gNWdf3

Good Tuesday morning, and welcome to your favorite morning health care tipsheet. If that’s not true, please don’t tell me. I’m already worried about whether I’ll be able to recognize the Supreme Court justices simply by the sound of their voice, considering I’ll most likely be seated behind a mammoth pillar blocking everything. I won’t have my phone in the courtroom this morning, but ping me anyway: pcunningham@politico.com.

“Three ring circus rockin’ round the PULSE.”

R.I. ROCKIN’ THE SHOP — Many states pushed aside their small business health exchanges (better known as SHOP) amid the myriad problems that arose before the health care law’s first enrollment season. But not the smallest state in the nation, Pro’s Natalie Villacorta reports. “Rhode Island put SHOP front and center, and half a year later, its program has signed up a bigger percentage of the population than that of any other state,” she writes.

…“To date, 175 businesses have gotten SHOP coverage, representing 700 employees and 1,110 people total. While the numbers themselves aren’t big, they represent 0.1 percent of all Rhode Islanders. That’s double the percentage of New York, the next-highest state, according to data compiled by HealthSource RI.” http://politico.pro/QBrdbA

LAWMAKERS SUPPORT OPM LAWSUIT — Thirty-eight members of Congress have filed an amicus brief supporting Sen. Ron Johnson’s lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management. Johnson filed the lawsuit earlier this year, charging that its decision allowing the federal government to contributing to members’ plans violates both the ACA and rules surrounding the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

--“The unlawful executive action at issue in this case is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is part of any ongoing campaign by the executive branch to rewrite the Affordable Care Act…on a wholesale basis,” the amicus brief says. Signers include Ted Cruz, John McCain and Mark Kirk in the Senate and Marsha Blackburn, Jim Jordan and Tom Price in the House. The brief: http://1.usa.gov/1eYi60d ICYMI, our story on the lawsuit: http://politico.pro/1cU6yYa

** A message from UnitedHealthcare: At UnitedHealthcare, we're using our experience and access to vast health care information to make health care simpler and more responsive. Learn more at www.uhc.com

SCHWARTZ AD TOUTS OBAMACARE — Which Democrat in a tough race isn’t running away from Obamacare this year? Rep. Allyson Schwartz, that’s who. One of four Democrats vying to take on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, Schwartz embraces both Obama and his health care law in a new ad shared first with POLITICO. “I worked with President Obama on the Affordable Care Act and getting health coverage to all Americans,” Schwartz says in the ad. “It’s something I’m proud of because it also closed the gap in prescription drug coverage for seniors.” http://politico.pro/1gOgp0n

DEATH BY SODIUM — The FDA should set limits on sodium levels in processed foods, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. To apply pressure, the group is launching a counter on its website that logs how many preventable deaths have occurred since the Institute of Medicine in 2010 urged the agency to set targets. “Because the FDA has not acted on the IOM’s recommendations, every year tens of thousands of Americans prematurely fall victim to strokes, heart attacks or other health problems caused or exacerbated by excess sodium intake,” CSPI said in a press release yesterday. The counter: http://bit.ly/1kUIAzJ

FORMER GOP REP SAYS HE DIDN’T KNOCK HASTERT – Steve Gunderson, a former House Republican from Wisconsin, is disputing the way Hillary Clinton characterized their 1993 conversation on health care reform in handwritten notes that were released by the Clinton presidential library Friday. As POLITICO reported, Clinton’s notes suggested that Gunderson warned that “Hastert is tool of Rep. Leadership which wants to kill Admin plan.”

--In a statement to POLITICO, Gunderson says that’s not how he remembers it: “Hillary Clinton called me as part of her outreach to moderate Republicans. I informed her that it would not be helpful for me to co-sponsor prior to the introduction of legislation, but that I could be helpful going forward in creating a bipartisan compromise. Neither at that point, nor any time in my career, did I say anything negative about Dennis Hastert.” The story: http://politi.co/1eWO4tP The Clinton notes, starting on page 110: http://1.usa.gov/QszLSi

MEDICAID AND DENTAL BENEFITS – When states add dental benefits to adult Medicaid coverage, more dentists participate in the program and they see more Medicaid patients without decreasing appointments for privately insured patients, finds a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. To achieve that, they make greater use of dental hygienists and wait times increase modestly, researchers found. http://bit.ly/1rfoaBh

ACO CARE PATTERNS — Harvard researchers found that one-third of those on Medicare assigned to accountable care organizations in 2010 and 2011 weren’t assigned to the same ACOs in both years, in a study published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine. The patients assigned to different ACOs tended to be in high-cost categories, such as those with end-stage renal disease, disabilities and Medicaid coverage. Researchers also found that 66.7 percent of visits with specialists were provided outside the assigned ACO. The findings suggest that ACOs might need better incentives and more ways to improve care efficiency. http://bit.ly/1nDbjZB

ABOUT THOSE ACOs — While we’re talking ACOs, a senior advisor at CMS’s innovation center also wrote yesterday about what the agency’s doing to nurture the care organizations by testing new models and supporting a variety of state efforts to create new incentives. Data from the first year of new “pioneer ACOs” suggests that they generated gross savings of $147 million, writes Rahul Rajkumar. But for them to succeed in the long-term, providers must make fundamental changes in their day-to-day operations — and they’ll only do that if the financial incentives are large enough, he adds. The viewpoint: http://bit.ly/1iDMgoz

WHAT WE’RE READING, By Susan Levine

The New York Times takes a look at Americans who very consciously opted not to get health coverage during the first Obamacare enrollment season — and why they made that decision. http://nyti.ms/1mxHCeQ

Bloomberg View considers the final Obamacare sign-up numbers, which were surprising "in both good ways and bad." http://bv.ms/1pnAPGP

Anthem Blue Cross signed up nearly a third of the people who enrolled in a health plan through the Covered California state exchange, according to the Los Angeles Times. http://lat.ms/1gOi8Tl

Editor at large Joan Walsh writes in Salon that even red-state Democrats are right politically to support Medicaid expansion. http://bit.ly/1lvMIo0

One of the nation's top hospitals now has an herbal clinic where physician-referred patients are seen. The Wall Street Journal reports on the Cleveland Clinic's new approach. http://on.wsj.com/1rbOCOf

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, the CEO and president of New York City's Mount Sinai Health System urges Congress to incentivize the development of drugs to slow or prevent Alzheimer's disease, much as was done with orphan drug development. http://on.wsj.com/1nDDCai

** A message from UnitedHealthcare: When it comes to health care, you have questions, concerns and doubts. We believe you deserve thoughtful answers and simpler, more responsive health care. That's where UnitedHealthcare comes in. We see information and data from across the health care system and we are using those numbers to innovate programs and tools. Innovations that work for you. That's HEALTH IN NUMBERS. www.uhc.com

** A message from PhRMA: A new Milliman analysis reveals providing access to discounted medicine prices at the point of sale could save certain commercially insured patients with high deductibles and coinsurance $145 to more than $800 annually. The data also show a minimal impact on premiums given those plan costs would increase on average 1 percent or less if all of negotiated rebates were shared with patients. Negotiations between biopharmaceutical companies and health plans result in significant rebates. In fact, more than a third of the list price for brand medicines is rebated back to payers and the supply chain. These rebates created savings of more than $100 billion in 2015 and grow every year. Why not let patients benefit? Learn more at www.LetsTalkAboutCost.org. **

About The Author

Paige Winfield Cunningham is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro and co-author of the morning newsletter Pulse. Previously she reported for The Washington Times’ political team, covering elections, Congress and health policy, including the 2012 Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act.

Cunningham grew up in St. Louis and attended college in the Chicago area, graduating from Wheaton College in 2006. She spent most of her time at the Wheaton Record, where she served as features editor, but made sure she still had time for playing violin in the conservatory orchestra.

Cunningham covered county government for the Naperville Sun right out of college, but when the paper filed for bankruptcy, she decided it was time to move on. She moved to the D.C. area in 2009 to report on Virginia government and currently lives in that state with her husband.